Instead of watching television, I went back to my room and sat on my bed, thinking about what Rex had said about the cage at his house. Whenever I left the reservation, I was going to have to find a safe place to shift. My home was in the city, but it was too risky to do it there. I needed to come up with a plan.
Thoughts of trying to leave the reservation early still plagued my brain. Knowing that I carried the lycanthropy disease, the reservation felt more like a prison than ever before. Still, if I left now, not only would it seem suspicious, but it would also ruin my career. This was a big story, one that every journalist in the office wanted, and I had been the lucky person picked to cover it. I couldn't just throw everything away, not when there was no current threat of me being stuck inside of the reservation.
With all the time that I had before sleep would come, I allowed myself to get a bit irrational, fantasizing about having sex with Chris so that I'd have a less shameful excuse for contracting the lycanthropy disease, should I be discovered. Even more irrationally, I worked on devising a plan to help all the werewolves escape. By the time sleepiness began to hit me again, I thought I must be going crazy to consider such things.
The next morning, I woke up less than bright eyed. Resigning to continue with my job, I decided that I would spend my day doing interviews, like usual.
At breakfast, I hardly spoke. The alphas and betas questioned my absence from the previous two meals, and I told them the same thing I had said to the compound staff when I turned in the ATV. My excuse for being less enthusiastic than normal was that I wasn't feeling good. Unfortunately, I probably wouldn't be feeling well for a while, possibly not for the rest of my time on the reservation.
After breakfast, I caught up with Linda Evans, the woman who normally worked at the laundry facility during the week. My interview with her was short and sweet. I asked her only the basic questions, nothing more, my mind too consumed with my own problems to care about her story.
The day carried on, and I drug myself through the motions. Lunch, interview, dinner, back to my room. Chris was on my doorstep yet again, an unwelcome sight. Couldn't he give me a few days to rest?
“Hey,” he greeted me, standing to make way for me to open the door.
“Hey you,” I replied.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like crap.”
“Do you want me to leave you alone again?”
For a moment, I thought about it. If I kept pushing Chris away, eventually he wouldn't come back. Did I really want that?
“Come on in,” I said finally, allowing him to follow me inside.
As soon as Chris sat down on the loveseat, he began, “I'm sorry about what happened the other night after the hierarchy trials.”
This was something I definitely did not want to discuss right now.
“It's alright,” I told him. “You were drunk. I understand.”
“Life has been hard since I've been in here. I mean, initially. It is starting to get better, though I still wouldn't say that I'm happy.”
“Well, I'm glad that things are starting to get better for you.” I gave him a weak smile as I lazily flopped down onto the recliner.
“I suppose it is what it is.” Chris shrugged. “Like you said, this is my home now. I'll have to get used to it sooner or later. Resisting isn't going to make things any easier for me.”
“No, it won't.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, the tension in the room reflecting in his nervous actions. “Um, I was wondering if you wanted to go play ping-pong or air hockey one night?”
“Sure.”
An awkward silence fell between us, and Chris finally began to understand that I would rather be alone. He stood, yawning as if to indicate he was tired. “Well, I guess I'll go then.”
“Alright.” I walked Chris to the door, watching him until he was down the stairs and a few yards away.
The next morning, after breakfast, I swallowed my pain and took an ATV out to see Rex. Whether I liked it or not, the cage at his house was the safest place for me to shift. There really weren't any other logical options, and while I never wanted to see his face again for what he had done to me, I needed the address, and the only way to get it was to speak to him directly.
Surprisingly, Rex was home, and as he had said he would, he opened the door to me without hesitation. Strange emotions raced through me as I stared into the mysterious green eyes of the man who had been my attacker only days prior.
“I suppose you're ready to talk,” Rex said.
With my hands crossed over my chest, I stepped inside. My eyes instantly honed in on the cot where I had been violated atop a mound of animal furs. The memory burned through me and made me want to leave, but I knew I had to stay, if only long enough to discover the whereabouts of this werewolf cage he had told me about.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, leaving the door propped open to let the cool forest air circulate through the room.
“As good as can be expected.” I turned my eyes on Rex. “I just came to get the location of that cage.”
“Sit.” He gestured to the bed, pulling up a chair and straddling it between his legs as if he was actually interested in my company. “It's so rare that I get visitors.”
Despite my disgust, I sat on the bed.
“You know that Emmett isn't the real alpha, don't you?” Rex said.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I shook my head at him.
“Just trying to make conversation is all.” He looked genuinely offended.
“You raped me, and you expect that I'm just going to want to sit here and talk like nothing happened?” I furrowed my brow at Rex.
“Hey!” He pointed his finger at me, and I instinctively flinched away. Knowing he had scared me, his voice softened. “I . . . I'm sorry, alright. Like I told you before, if there had been any other way, I would have done it.”
“There were other ways, Rex. You could have cut me and cut yourself and put our blood together.” I stuttered, trying to think of more possibilities. “You could have bitten me or . . . or I don't know.”
“I was trying to make it as less traumatizing for you as possible. Plus, there couldn't be any evidence.”
“Less traumatizing?” I couldn't believe he had dared to say that.
“Listen, I said I'm sorry. I can't take it back. All I can do now is help you. Now do you want my help or not?”
It took everything in me to steady my nerves. Already, my hands were shaking, something that only happened when I was at the peak of my anger. “Just give me the fucking address.”
“Whoa. Calm down, little lady.” Rex threw his hands up in surrender. “No need to get hostile. I bet you don't act like this around the other werewolves.”
“The other werewolves didn't rape me.”
He cringed. “You know, I'm going to regret that for the rest of my life”
“—Well you're not the only one,” I cut him off.
“Can we just start over?”
“I'm afraid that's not how this works.”
“Then how does it work, Taya?”
“I just came here for the address.”
“Don't you want to at least interview me?”
“Not particularly.”
“Well, don't you think it will look a bit weird if you keep returning empty handed?”
“This is the last time that I plan to return.”
“I'd think that you would like at least one of the stories from a lone wolf for your report. I know that Chris and Bart didn't open their doors to you.”
I sighed in exasperation. In honesty, Rex was right. It would help to paint a better picture of life on the reservation as a whole if I had an interview from one of the lone wolves. And while he wasn't my top choice at that moment, he was the only one willing to give me an interview.
“I don't understand why you want me to interview you when none of the others do,” I said.
“I don't want you to interview me,
but it's the least that I can do after . . . well, you know.”
As much as I wanted to tell Rex that giving me the location of the cage would be enough, I did need the interview.
“Alright,” I agreed finally, flipping my notebook to a blank page in an exaggerated gesture and writing his name on the top. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“How long have you lived on the reservation?”
He thought for a moment. “About five years.”
“How did you contract the lycanthropy disease?”
“My brother gave it to me.”
This caught me by surprise, though my interest was just barely peaked. I heard plenty of stories about lovers and strangers, but never about the disease being passed on by a family member of the same sex.
“Elaborate,” I said, trying to seem disinterested.
Rex looked down, recalling the memory. “My brother Rafael and I were always close. Hell, he's the one who raised me. My father was an alcoholic . . . beat us all the time. My mother was none the better. Hell, we were never happier when the old man shot himself one night and left us the hell alone. Mom was always out whoring around, so it was just Rafael and me.
“We grew up rough. Mostly him. He tried to shelter me from a lot of stuff, but I still caught the run offs. Fights. Bullying. He was one mean son of a bitch, but he cared for me, made sure I was fed. Mom sure as hell didn't give a shit about that. If it was up to her, we both would have died.
“Anyway, we were living together out at my place . . . the one I was telling you about. He'd stay gone for a few days at a time, so I'm not really sure if saying that he lived there was that accurate. He just kinda came and went as he pleased. Used it as a home base, I suppose.
“I lived completely off the land. Have always hated civilization and other people. People are stupid. Do stupid things. Say stupid things. You're better off not caring about them most of the time. They always let you down.
I could see pain behind his eyes, and for the first time since he had given me the disease, my heart softened for Rex.
He continued, “It was late one night. I had just got back from a hunt. I was skinning a deer up by the back of the house, and I seen this wolf come out of the bushes, biggest fuckin' thing I'd ever seen.” His eyes widened at the memory. “All I had was my skinning knife. I tried to go for the gun, but the damn thing was on me before I could get to it. If Rafael was vicious as a man, he was about ten times worse as a wolf.” Rex smirked. “I stabbed that motherfucker in the shoulder, trying to hold him off of me while those fucking teeth snapped like they were going to take my head off. Then I seen his eyes, blue, soft, full of remorse for his actions. I knew right then it was my brother, and that he couldn't control himself.
“We rolled and battled for a while. He never bit me but I got scratched all to shit. I'm sure you know that a scratch is just as bad as a bite. I'm not quite sure how that works. I still think werewolves come from Native American magic. Fuck all of them scientists. That's why they can't find the cure. They're not searching in the right place.”
“Where should they be searching?” I asked, my eyes fixed on him in fascination.
“Can I finish my story, please?” He gave me a look of annoyance, and I cowered.
“Yes, please continue.”
“Thank you. Now, as I was about to say, I fought Rafael off until the moon hid behind the clouds. He transformed back into a human, and I was stupid enough to come after him, worried about his shoulder wound. As soon as the moon came out again though, we were fighting like before.
“I could have just said fuck it. Ran inside the house and let him spend the night alone, doing whatever it is we do when we're like that, but he was my brother and all I had left. I was scared of him getting shot or captured, so I kept him occupied all night.
“In the morning, when he shifted back, we stitched up each other's wounds. God damn were we both a bloody mess. Me mainly. I got plenty of battle scars from it. That's for damn sure.”
Rex was right. I hadn't noticed it before, but his tan arms were marred with multiple white scars. It looked like they had healed well over time, but there were sure a lot of them.
He continued. “The son of a bitch was mad at me for fighting him off so long, letting him give me the disease. But hell, when you've only got one person in this world, you're going to fight for them, aren't you? Damn the consequences. We were in for life together, man, werewolf, monster; I didn't care. Hell, I still don't. Don't regret what I did.
“I told him that we needed to build a cage to contain ourselves during the shift. He said it was bullshit, that wolves need to roam. He liked being a werewolf, said he was always meant to be one. Maybe I was too. He loved the idea of stalking through the night, killing prey all primal, running through the forest, and even waking up butt naked,” Rex chuckled.
“I knew it was too dangerous to do all that shit though. Hell, we lived out in the woods, but wolves can easily cover fifty miles a day, and there were other people living in a fifty-mile radius of us. I couldn't stand the thought of us hurting or killing some kids or something. So, despite all of his bitching, I began constructing the cage, hoping that he'd change his mind once my first shift came around.
“Turns out he didn't. I begged him to get in the cage with me, but he refused, ripping off all of his clothes, whooping and howling like a wild animal even before the shift. He ran out into the forest, and I chose to stay and lock myself in, even though I secretly wanted to follow him. Hell, I looked up to my brother, and even though he wasn't the greatest guy in the world, I had always wanted to be just like him. I ain't never loved no one in the world but him.
“The moon came, and I shifted. You don't remember much about it. Every once in a while, when the moon goes behind the clouds, you'll feel a tremor of consciousness when you slip back to. But as soon as that moon comes out again, you're gone, just like that.” Rex snapped his fingers, startling me for a moment. I had been listening to him so intently.
He continued, “The next morning, I woke up naked and banged up as hell. I guess the wolf in me really wanted out of that damn cage. It was bent in places, but it held, and that was all that mattered.
“I guess I should have been happy it did, because Rafael never came home. He wandered off onto one of the neighbors' farms and got himself shot. Luckily, it was on the news before the authorities had a chance to get to our house. Whenever the body of a werewolf is discovered, they question all the person's family members. On some occasions, they'll even detain the entire family.
“I was smart. Took off for the woods. The cops came, even sent hounds after me. Stupid mutts. I don't care what they say about a dog's intelligence. A man is always smarter. I outfoxed them.
“Not dumb enough to stick around, I left and headed up to Montana. Bought some more supplies and built another cage out in the woods on some guy's property. He had more acres than he needed, and I don't need much to survive, so I was able to live fine for a while.
“I wanted to come back though. Gave it a year. Then I went back to our old house. It was still there. I would have been pissed if they would have taken it from us. Hell, I might have thought to turn into a wolf and rip up the whole town.
“I used some left-over supplies I had to reinforce the cage. I was able to stay and shift there for two more years. Then one day, I went in town to buy something, and I suspect some fucking asshole reported me to the authorities. I wasn't causing no trouble or nothing.
“The cops came full force that time. Must have been six cars outside my place. Dogs. SWAT. The whole fucking nine yards. I ain't never seen so many cops go after one man in all my life.
“I wanted to run, but I knew I wouldn't get far with the dogs, and I'm not one to shoot no dogs. They're not assholes by nature. They're just trained to be that way.
“I went to get my gun. Was gonna off myself. Hell, I had nothing to live for no more anyway. Brother gone. Just living day by day. There's noth
ing special about that.
“By the time I got to the gun, they were throwing tear gas through the window. I put it to my head and pulled the trigger, but the fucking thing wasn't loaded. Rafael must have thought I would try to off myself and took the fucking bullets out of the gun. That was our 'in case of an emergency' gun. We always kept it loaded but never really looked at it. Never really had a need to. We'd been in bad trouble before, but never that bad.
“Anyway, the cops got me, brought me here, and now here we are.” Rex's eyes flashed around the room for a moment.
“Wow,” I said, staring at him with my pen pressed to the paper, my hand unmoving. “Just wow. That's pretty intense.”
He shrugged. “You wanted the story. I gave it to you. Now, I suspect you'd like that address.”
“Yes, please.” I shook away reeling thoughts of his story as I jotted down the address and directions to where the cage could be found. Rex also informed me of where I could find a key to get into the house and how to secure the cage to make sure that I couldn't get out during my shift.
“The house is yours until you can find a cure,” he told me. “And if a cure is never found, then consider it a gift from me. I want you to be safe.”
“Why?” I looked up at him for a moment. “Oh wait, you don't want me to get caught. I remember.”
“Not just that,” Rex paused. “We're dangerous, Taya. There's no pussy footing around it. While I don't think that the reservation . . . I mean, this fucking prison, is the right way to go about containing the problem, it does need to be contained. Innocent people get hurt when we're not. Lord knows I don't want this curse passed on to anyone else.”
“But you passed it on to me.” I felt my fascination with him waning.
“Because you're the only one who can help. And I wanted to give you some true motivation to help. Tell the paper my story. Tell them my thoughts on other solutions to this problem, not just scientific ones. Explore Native American legends, talk about setting up every infected person's home with a security cage. Hell, we're only werewolves a couple of hours out of the month. The rest of the time, we're just everyday ordinary people. It don't make sense to keep people imprisoned like this. There are better solutions out there, even if there isn't a cure. Hell, appeal to the government budget. Talk about how much money they'd save if they could close down the reservation and just issue us cages instead.”
A Month with Werewolves (The With Werewolves Saga Book 1) Page 11